An Overview of the Two-surfaced gliders that came out of the 'Chanute Group.'

Centered around Octave Chanute, Chicago was one of three centers of aeronautical
research in the United States in 1896. From his group came the Chanute-Herring glider
that was to be the most significant pre-Wright aircraft. Two strongly trussed wings
with a cruciform tail, the wings would be the design chosen by the Wright brothers
to build their planes. The glider foreshadowed the bi-planes of the early years
of flight.

While Chanute was cautious about the future of this glider as an airplane, his assistant
and chief contributor to the design, Augustus Herring, was inspired. Convinced that
all was needed was an engine and propellers on the glider, he built and experimented
with a three winged glider immediately following the initial experiments in the
Indiana Dunes in 1896. The following year he found a new patron in Matthias Arnot,
who financed the building of a bi-plane glider fashioned after the original Chanute-Herring
glider. And the next year, 1898, he did put an engine and propellers on a bigger
version of the glider and 'flew' it near his home in St. Joseph, Michigan. Chanute
built one more of the 'original' glider, exhibiting and flying it at the St. Louis
Exposition of 1904. Only the last one survives, having been bought by the Musee
de l'Air, it is on public display at the new Musee de l'Air et de l'Space at the
Bourget Airport in Paris, France.

The following table provides an overview and comparison of these gliders.

1 Chanute, in his diary entry
of August 31st, mentions that the three-wing glider was cut down to two wings. Herring
wrote about this glider in the Aeronautical Annual, 1897.

2 In pictures the first Chanute-Herring
glider was often confused with the Herring-Arnot glider. The most obvious difference
is the position of the vertical support bars to the bars that the pilot supported
himself on. In the original glider the bars were vertical, in the Herring-Arnot
version the bars were angled in slightly to give the glider pilot easier control.

3Fabric overhang: In the original
glider the fabric overhangs the interplane struts in each strut bay. Examination
of photos and drawings is certain to bring confusion on this point and cannot be
taken as a final determination.

4 The pictures indicate an almost flat
wing with a short downturn in the wing section at the front.